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UK Regulator Investigating Girls’ Virtual Fashion Site Miss Bimbo

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The UK’s premium-rate phone regulator Phonepayplus has launched an investigation into the controversial online fashion site Miss Bimbo, which allows its typical audience of girls aged 9-16 to buy diet pills and plastic surgery for their virtual characters. The Guardian reports that the regulator is looking into the site in which users amass virtual credits by sending in text messages costing £1.50 ($3.00) each. It will also investigate whether the site breaks the rules governing children’s services. The site has drawn an enormous amount of negative feedback from parents groups, prompting Parentkind to call it a “hazard and a menace” as young children might not get the “tongue-in-cheek” tone that its creators said it intended for the virtual beauty site. In France, where the site came from and a similar controversy around it brews, Miss Bimbo has attracted 1.2 million users. In the UK, it has amassed 260,000 users.

Mar 27, 2008 6:49 AM ET

Posted In: Technologies / Formats, Companies, Countries, Europe, UK, miss bimbo, phonepayplus

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